Sunset Read Online Free Page A

sir. But I’ll . . .’ He broke off and did not know if the other man had heard him or not. He watched him throw his raincoat and cap on to the neat bunk and saw the DSC on his left breast and another darker ribbon on the right side, which he guessed had been awarded by the Humane Society. Brooke was looking up at a small skylight in the centre of the deckhead, the glass reflecting the water and the gulls, the steel shutters raised like a sign of peace or welcome.
    A voice whispered at the door and Kerr explained, ‘Time for Colours, sir.’
    Brooke heard him hurry away up the ladder again, no doubt wondering what sort of a nut he had been lumbered with. An experienced officer, a man who might resent that he was being kept aboard to hold the new captain’s hand. But he knew there was more to Kerr’s uneasiness than that. He moved about the cabin and saw the other one through an adjoining door. The daycabin. He smiled, and some of the tension seemed to drain away. What luxury!
    There was another crest here too, the ship’s battle honours displayed underneath. A part of history, another war. His father’s.
    Dover Patrol. Belgian Coast. Zeebrugge
.
    Feet shuffled overhead and the tannoy squeaked again.
    â€˜Attention on the upper deck! Face aft and salute!’
    Then another voice, almost directly overhead it seemed.
    â€˜
Colours
, sir!’
    And Kerr’s acknowledgement, crisp and formal.
‘Make it so!’
    The calls trilled, as they would aboard every ship in the Flow. Brooke could picture the Ensign rising to the staff. Routine, even necessary perhaps, despite the war, despite everything.
    â€˜Carry
on
!’
    As the call died away the ship seemed to come alive again. He imagined the men discussing him, wondering how the new captain might affect their lives. In battle, or across the defaulters’ table. Men he would come to know: the good, the bad, the brave and those who would crack if badly led.
    He tried to think of his father standing in this cabin, not as the broken man he had last seen in hospital.
    Tell me how she looks, eh
?
    Brooke opened his small case and took out the framed photograph which his father had insisted he should take to the ship. He must have known they would not meet again.
    Aloud he said, ‘She looks fine, Dad. She’ll do me.’
    It was a new beginning.
    The officer in the crumpled naval raincoat sitting by a window in the first-class compartment stirred, and was immediately still again. Tensed and listening like an awakening animal. He groaned and peered at his luminous watch. Dawn soon. It could be anything beyond the covered window with its glued protective netting, which was supposed to shield you against flying glass. He grimaced. Not much fear of an air attack up here, he thought.
    He seemed to have been on one train or another for ever.Dank R.T.O.’s offices at various stations, crowded compartments, and noise, always noise.
    He stretched his legs and remembered just in time that there was a young woman seated opposite him, who had boarded the train at Edinburgh.
    He gathered his wits. The other two passengers, army artillery officers, were asleep, one with his mouth open. They could have been dead.
    It was so dark in the compartment, with only tiny screened lights above each of the seats, that he could not tell if the woman was awake or not. He had felt her watching him, no doubt curious about his destination.
    He must have slept without making any noise. Calling out. Fighting the madness which was always with him.
    Perhaps when he joined his next appointment, the destroyer H.M.S.
Serpent,
he could lose himself again. Forget . . . He had looked up the ship several times. Small and old. Very old. He felt his stomach contract violently. She would seem tiny after a carrier.
    He felt the woman’s shoe touch his leg and heard her instant apology.
    â€˜I – I’m so sorry. I must have fallen asleep after all!’ She